“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Beijing Games 2022! Let me hear your voice!” And so to the Ice Cube for the mixed curling for an intriguing first day of action at these XXIV Winter Olympics. Before the opening stone was cast, a Chinese military band of bagpipers dressed in kilts blasted out Scotland the Brave, while a dancing panda mascot pulled shapes. But the surreal soon turned into the reassuringly familiar as the British gold-medal favourites, Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds, secured an opening night victory over Sweden.
Unlike at the Tokyo Summer Games last year, a select band of around 200 spectators were also on hand to watch this most slow-burning of sports – although whether the crowd was quietly enthralled, or merely bored, was unclear until they exploded into sustained cheers after China won a sudden-death match over Switzerland.
